The Rolling Stones, Metamorphosis
Featured Album
An excellent rarities collection with some real treats for super-fans.
Covering the Stones 'early years, Metamorphosis is a heavily curated collection of Stones outtakes and rarities paced by a handful of absolutely essential Jagger/Richards tunes. The best song is undoubtedly "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind," one of the band's primo country songs poorly covered at the time by Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham's passion project, Vashti Bunyan. In the Stones 'hands, "Some Things" is a fascinating pastiche of '60s Nashville country, with very open-ended, elegiac lyrics (a later Stones staple). (For more on this track, and other little-known Stones standouts, check out this feature [LINK].)
Elsewhere there's an ornate version of "Heart of Stone" that easily bests the original; "I'd Much Rather Be With the Boys," a fantastic Motown girl-group number; "Try a Little Harder," an extremely out of character Stones take on early '60s white-boy pop; and the "Shine a Light"-reminiscent "I Don't Know Why," which would feel completely at home on Exile, Sticky Fingers or Goat's Head Soup.
But wait, there's more! "If You Let Me" is just waiting for a new Wes Anderson flick; "Downtown Suzie" swings weird and stoned; "Family" improves upon the band's Satanic Majesties-era psych while mimicking Bob Dylan to boot; and "I'm Going Down" serves as "Gimme Shelter" part two. And that's not even mentioning "Out Of Time," the sweet and sassy opener that swoons in marvelous, life-affirming beauty. Your Stones obsession starts here.
